By Alok Joshi
Recently during my home declutter mission, I happened to find my old mark sheets from High School to Masters’ Degree. These faded testimonials summarised my journey to be “something” in life. They reminded me of tremendous hard work, stress and sacrifice along the way. They also got me thinking about their real worth in real life. And why was I still preserving and lugging them along for decades?
Since my father was a renowned educationist himself, there was obviously a lot of focus on academic performance in our home. During the first few years in school, I was just average. In a class of 50 odd students, I was always somewhere in the middle. Then, something happened! I was struck with typhoid and could not attend school for over a month. But during the very next quarterly exam, I stood seventh or eighth in the class to my surprise. I had not attended classes but performed much better. Perhaps this event changed my mindset and instilled confidence in me. After that, there was no looking back. I was always in the first three positions in the class until my 10th board exams. I quietly struggled under huge pressure to score more in order to retain/ improve my position. Besides, I wanted to be an all-rounder. The quiet and shy boy inside me transformed into the Head Boy of the school and a member of the school cricket team. I scored 75 percent and was amongst the first ten merit positions of the entire CBSE Board. I studied in a Government School and I am so proud of my alma mater.
Maths was my weakest subject in school. My father, a mathematician of repute (who retired as Dean of University and Professor Emeritus), tried to teach me but I failed him. I used to be very scared of him and his baritone voice. In my 10th standard, a tutor, one of my father’s ex-students, used to come to teach me at home from 6 to 7 a.m. every day. My mother would wake me up at 5:30 every morning with a cup of tea. She also prepared breakfast for my tutor. Looking back, I salute her dedication and sacrifice to ensure her eldest son scored well and also set an example for my three younger brothers. Unbelievably, I scored 142 out of 150 in the matriculation board exams (my highest) in Arithmetic. But as soon as the results were out, I threw away all my maths books and piles of notebooks. I hated maths and decided not to pursue any course that had even an iota of numbers in the syllabus.
I got a scholarship in the college but decided to opt for Arts. The average scores of my classmates were very low. The Professor even thought I was in the wrong class. Being the obedient son, the hope of the family, I focused only on my studies and graduated with exceptional results and won several prizes including from late General Sam Manekshaw, the then Vice President of India and other dignitaries during my college time.
In my masters’ degree, the first year I kind of went astray in the company of friends and my new-found freedom. My scores slumped for the first time. But I made up in the second year and finally managed my first class with a gold medal. Incidentally my dad was a gold medallist, himself, and other brothers also followed suit. My simple mother’s biggest treasure was the five gold medals in her cupboard.
But what has all this taught me? Do marksheets matter in life? I am not very sure. In fact, I’m more inclined to say “No”. Who cares how much you have scored. Yes, it gives you momentary satisfaction. Your marks are like popular Bollywood songs that seem to determine the success of the movie but have no relevance to the story and are soon forgotten. For me, personally, my greatest happiness was to see my parents proud of me. Those days there was no social media but my mother herself was more than that and would often boast to her family and neighbours about how good I was, primarily based on my exam results.
Good marks in board exams help us get admission in reputed colleges and universities. That is about it. They don’t automatically land us in good jobs or guarantee success in life. Competitive exams are of course a different ballgame. I had also cracked the Civil Services where scores in the written as well as interview land you in a career. Every mark matters, and I did lose a lot because of that single mark.
What ultimately matters are your overall personality and confidence. Toppers do not necessarily always top in life. Nobody ever asked me how much I scored in my school or college. Nobody bothered if I had two masters’ degrees. Nobody ever asked me about the University from where I had obtained my MBA. It did not matter to them if I got the degree in Europe on a UN Fellowship or from any commercial private institute.
I jumped careers and jobs because of my confidence which came from my experience and exposure to the world. Once you enter an organisation at the bottom rung, you can safely retire climbing up the ladder. Your marksheets don’t matter. If you are changing jobs (which one should for better exposure), the selection board will consider your past experience, contribution, attitude and personality and skills, not your mark-sheets.
Board exams don’t test your intelligence. Life does, not once but many times. How you deal with situations matters. How you achieve goals and objectives matters. Your adaptability and resilience matters.
Without trying to belittle the importance of good academic performance and hard work, my humble appeal to parents is not to over-emphasise board mark sheets. I told my kids not to fuss about scores, just get through their tests to save me embarrassment in front of the Principal. Scores are not everything in life. Being good human beings matters. Learning practical skills matters. Being focused matters. And students need not be discouraged with their marks. Ultimately the brave, the smart, succeed. Not always the first-row benchers.
This is my story. Many may not agree. But then they are entitled to have their own story.
(Alok Joshi is former Director, HR & Marketing, PetroChina; Head HRD, GNPOC, Sudan; Head HR, Mumbai High Asset, ONGC; Civil Services probationer; author of three books and has over a hundred published articles to his credit.)
